A Creative Conversation: Arts and Social Entrepreneurship

WHEN: Monday, October 26, 2009
WHERE: WNYC’s Jerome L. Greene Space, 44 Charlton Street, Manhattan

Emerging Leaders of New York Arts recently hosted a Creative Conversation exploring the intersection of passion-driven mission, market-responsive business discipline, and creative innovation.  Can the arts both benefit from social enterprise and contribute solutions to other societal needs?  How does the social enterprise model differ from traditional arts management?  What are arts funders looking for and how can established organizations learn to realize broad social impact?

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This was our inaugural event in partnership WNYC’s Jerome L. Greene Performance Space. We will continue to host events at the Greene Space quarterly, tapping into their fantastic audio recording equipment that will enable us to present podcasts via their site and ours.

Ryan Fix is the founder of PURE Project, an organization that uses creativity and innovation to promote sustainable solutions that advance a common good in the world, which they call “PUREPROJECTS”. Examples include Openhouse, a pop-up retail exhibition gallery located in SoHo/NoLiTa with a triple bottom line considering social, environmental and financial sustainability; and Picnick, a restaurant concept launched in Battery Park in 2007 that serves as a mini-model of consumer and eco-conscious food service. PURE is a founding partner of the annual arts festival FIGMENT*. The organization’s latest project is PUREPLANET, an initiative aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions through reforestation programs, the first of which was launched in Peru in September 2008.

Lara Galinsky is the senior vice president at Echoing Green. Lara’s portfolio consists of the day-to-day management of Echoing Green, marketing and communications, evaluation, thought leadership, alliances, strategic planning, and internal capacity building. Most recently, Lara worked as the director of National Programs at Do Something, Inc., working with over 20,000 educators to inspire 4 million young people to get involved in their communities and develop vital leadership skills. Before that, Lara launched the BRICK Award, which annually honors and funds the most outstanding community leaders under the age of thirty. Lara graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wesleyan University and has completed executive programs at Columbia University Business School and Georgetown University’s School of Public Policy.  She serves as a board member for the Nonprofit Workforce Coalition, NYC Venture Philanthropy Fund, and the Fast Forward Fund, as well as the board chair of StartingBloc. She recently graduated from Coro’s Leadership New York program.

Adam Forest Huttler is founder and Executive Director of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit organization that serves a national community of artists and arts organizations. Their programs and services facilitate the creation of art by offering vital support to the artists who produce it. They help artists and arts organizations function more effectively as businesses by providing access to funding, healthcare, education, and more, all in a context that honors their individuality and independent spirit. Adam has a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and an M.B.A. from New York University.  Since forming Fractured Atlas in 1998, he has grown the organization from a one-man-band housed in an East Harlem studio apartment to a broad-based national service organization with an annual budget of nearly $6 million.   These days Adam is mainly responsible for Fractured Atlas’ organizational leadership and strategy. He also manages the company’s growing advocacy work, along with the design and implementation of its information technology systems. Outside of Fractured Atlas, Adam serves on the Board of Directors for Misnomer Dance Theater and is an enthusiastic organic gardener.

Risë Wilson is the Program Manager for Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC)’s national programs focused on artist space and health insurance/health care for artists. As the manager of the Space for Change program at LINC, Risë is helping to re-shape a national conversation about what defines best practices in the field of Artist Space Development, where community engagement is a core principle. Her work at LINC is informed by a background as the Founder of The Laundromat Project, an emerging social enterprise based in New York City that sponsors public art projects in neighborhood laundries as a way of making art more accessible–physically, financially, and conceptually–to communities of color living on low incomes.

Dana Weissman (Moderator) is a nonprofit/arts rainmaker specializing in cultural communications, audience development and business development. Having just planned and produced the 92nd Street Y’s 15th Annual StreetFest, she will begin her new role as Community Center Director at the Lower East Side’s Educational Alliance next week. She also consults in the areas of business development and social media marketing for such socially responsible businesses as Good Company, a cause marketing firm; womensforum.com, a women’s web network; and Call2Action, a web marketing platform for nonprofits and social enterprise. Recently, Dana provided services to nonprofits and cause marketers at Care2.com, where she worked with such organizations as the Children’s Health Fund, CARE, and Sierra Club to improve their brand recognition, build their membership bases, and increase support for their cause-related initiatives. Prior to joining Care2, Dana was the Director of Audience Development and Community Outreach at the 92nd Street Y. A founding member of ELNYA, Dana also co-founded the Tufts Alumni Nonprofit Roundtable. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dana-weissman/4/391/349

THANK YOU to our conversation leaders and participants, and to our ELNYA volunteer coordinators this evening, Erin Eisenberg and Stephanie Pereira.  Arts Solidarity!